I'm not sure why, but I think Tracey's shoes are the ultimate party's shoes.
I have party on the mind this weekend. Doug has an awesome early birthday weekend planned. That involves dinner in a fancy, shmancy DC restaurant. And wine! And an overnight babysitter. And a hotel. It might be Heaven.
Or maybe it is because I met Tracey at a Mom's night I went to. Or, because I have another Mom's night out event to tell you all about.
musiKids
will host its first Moms Night Out at its Bethesda, MD
studio on Thursday, May 6 from 7:30-9:30 p.m.Come sing, socialize and relax with musiKids staff and other DC-area
mothers.In addition
to tasty nibbles and refreshments from Thyme Out, the evening will feature mini
massages from Be You Bi You Spa, mothering tips from the Center for Growing
Families, and karaoke to release one’s inner songstress.
Tickets to
Moms Night Out are available for $12 by calling 301-215-7946 or e-mailing
info@musiKids.com.They can also be
purchased for $15 at the door.
musiKids is
located at 4900 Auburn Ave.
in Bethesda.
For more information, visit www.musikids.com/events.php
musiKids provided me with two tickets to the event so I will be there also.
So I'm not going, but my friend Kim is. (Kim, you won!) Which is funny because about 3 hours before I asked Doug to pick a number that would represent the winner, Kim was tweeting saying, pick me! Pick me! So I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I have no idea.
And Kim and I seem to be trading prizes lately. And wow, is that ever a terrible picture of me. It is like impossible for me to take a good picture. Or I always look awful, one or the other.
In other news I need a new haircut. And new makeup. And I a whole new look. I think I'm just sick of me.
My dishwasher has died. Mid cycle. I'm not exactly sure what happened but when I left the house the dishwasher was running and when I got home it was not running and all the water was still in the bottom. Which prompted a less then successful phone call to the company about how, no, I didn't know when the dishwasher was purchased, because we just moved into the house in September. And can you just do a service call? Oh, your going to transfer me. And then hang up on me. And I have to call again and speak to a robot and wait an hour to get a person. And it is two weeks until a service call? Okay, I'll just call a local service company. Thursday, that's better.
And then a conversation with Michael's teacher flipped me out a little bit because maybe things are not so absolutely perfect and wonderful after all. I mean, he is still "fine," but he still is having trouble at "circle time" and then I started thinking maybe he should not go to PUBLIC KINDERGARTEN ohmyg-d why can't I make this decision.
Why can't I stop freaking out?
Maybe circle time is boring. Maybe he doesn't like circle time. When did circle time start being the end all be all of a child's pre-school education. What if there is something actually wrong and all the evaluations were incorrect?
We had Kindergarten Orientation last week and after spending twenty minutes in a kindergarten classroom Michael declared he was not going to that school. Because they did not play games. And I told them they were going to play games. So there is another Country heard from. But that night at dinner he told Doug he loved it and wanted to go to "big boy" Kindergarten.
And then Monday he was the worst behaved I have ever seen him. Probably because he thinks he is changing schools again, like tomorrow. Or he is 5. I have no idea. Parenting becomes easier when?
So, it is status quo around here. With less clean dishes.
_______________
Last chance to enter my contest for Guppy Gala tickets. Closes tonight at 5:00.
Michael is color blind. I would say as color blind as a bat but are bats even color blind? I do not know...I was trying to make a blind as a bat joke there and I just don't think it worked.
I've known it for years, but his doctor wouldn't test him until he turned five because "some kids just don't know their colors." He knows his colors, he just can't see them. My father and nephew are also color blind, so he is in good company.
It started about a year ago when he told me "Mommy, I don't see colors very well." And then he told me all colors looked the same to him. And then, when his old preschool used the red, yellow, green traffic light behavior system, he never knew what color he was on. His teachers thought he just didn't care. He actually didn't know. But let's not get me started on them.
It doesn't affect him much, except he constantly tells me things are the wrong color. I grew up with my father arguing with me that blue was black and red was green, so I take it all with a grain of salt. Color blind Candy Land is all kinds of fun, and I challenge any of you to make it through a game without throwing your hands up and saying "FINE IT IS BLUE I GIVE UP."
Michael's latest love involves crafts, he will sit for hours coloring and drawing, and he really loves these bead kits. (not sponsored, affiliate link.) He can sit for longer than I ever thought possible making things out of beads. This weekend we bought him a pirate kit and I had no idea how complicated it was going to be. But he did it, and this child, the child his old school said, COULD NEVER SIT STILL, sat, and made a skeleton pirate out of teeny tiny beads, for an hour.
But I had no idea how color dependent this thing was. So Doug and I had to sit with him, sorting the colors into different bowls and reminding him which color was which. But he stuck with it.
When he was diagnosed as color blind his doctor said he could never fly a plane or detonate a bomb. He didn't say he wouldn't be able to do pre-school bead kits. Now I know.
The National Zoo has offered me four tickets to the Guppy Gala to give away. If you are not familiar with the Guppy Gala it is an event for families with
preschool and elementary school-age children. They can talk to veterinarians, scale
rock-climbing walls, enjoy live entertainment, feast on kid-friendly treats and
much more. This annual
family-friendly event offers guests exciting animal encounters, yummy
food, and a variety of spectacular activities. It is May 14 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (I am getting no compensation for giving away the tickets. I'm not even going, because I'm going to be out of town.)
We love the zoo, and we love zoo events. We went to ZooLights (sponsored), and had a blast, and have been to Boo at the Zoo (we paid for those tickets), and had an equally fabulous time.
Contest is open until Wednesday at 7 p.m. and a winner will be announced Thursday morning. Just leave a comment to enter. Let me know why you would want to go the Guppy Gala, or what your favorite thing at the zoo to see is.
Details and enter here. Contest closes at 5:00 tonight and the winner will be announced tomorrow, at which point I have a new contest to announce, for tickets to the zoo's Guppy Gala. I know! How fun is that?
In other, exciting only for me news, I have been given an iPad by my oh so awesome parents as an early birthday present. Since Friday afternoon the thing has not left my side, I love it so. I feel a little bit like I am cheating on my iPhone and my macbook, but I may love it a little bit more.
This was the scene in my house last night. We may need lives.
And I need just to point out, 3 of those electronic devices were mine. And Doug is a web designer. So clearly, it is just me who needs a life, on tweet deck on my iPad on a Saturday night. Then again Doug was watching the Penguins game and I had just hosted 4 5 year olds and their parents for a playdate and dinner. So, I deserved it.
And on a personal note, thank you all for making me laugh yesterday. It was much needed, and helped. Thank you also for all the concerned emails. Doug, Michael, and I are all fine.
I've got some heavy stuff going around these parts, stuff that is non blogable, and what I really need is a laugh. My friends Amy and Jennie did something recently and I'm stealing it from them. Please leave me a comment telling me something good. Something funny, something kind, something cute. Something that made you laugh out loud. Not LOL, but honest to goodness made you laugh out loud. I don't care what. Trust me, you have no idea how much I can use it.
And in other news my two closest friends are now reading this blog but are not commenting, but I expect that at some point to change. So soon you are not only going to have my parents commenting, but embarrassing childhood Jodi stories to boot! How far I have come since no one knew I had a blog. They kind of found out by accident but whatever, I'M OUT OF THE CLOSET.
This event looks like a lot of fun, and since the Curiosity Zone gave tickets to me for my family as well, we will be there.
I'm going to make entering super easy. Just leave me a comment. Tell me anything you want. But it has to be something more than hi, enter me. Tell me your favorite blog, your favorite color, why you want to go to this event, anything. Contest will be open until Sunday April 25th at 5:00 pm. The winner will be picked randomly from the comments. The winner will be announced Monday morning.
And I leave you with some jamming music. Courtesy of Science You Can Sing To.
We had one of those weekends where the sun shines and the birds sing (except that it was so cold) and I'm reminded about how lovely my life is. Truly. It was very low key and easy. Even Michael's OT and swimming lessons went well. Two things he hates with a passion. And then we took advantage of a no event Sunday and drove to Baltimore to spend the day at Port Discovery. (Not sponsored. We totally paid for the tickets.)
I found myself thinking this weekend about how different Michael has been lately. I'm not sure if it is turning 5, or that he is finally settling into the move, (someone said it could take 6 months and I wish I could remember who because I would totally link to you because you were so right), or that he is no longer getting criticized at school every minute, or OT, or WHAT, but he is BETTER. More settled. He listens. Everything is not a struggle. He is rarely in time out. His OT told me no less that 5 times that he is going to be fine. NO REALLY. He is going to be fine.
On Friday night my friend punditmom invited me to a book reading/signing by Judith Warner regarding her new book, We've Got Issues.** The book is about how even though everyone thinks children are over-medicated and over-diagnosed, this in fact is not true.
Which brings me back to Michael. When everything was going on with Michael and his old school first suggested ADHD, I was like, off course you would throw this at him. EVERYONE IS DIAGNOSED WITH THAT. EVERYONE IS ON RITALIN. Hey, guess what? That's not true. And in the end, after all the testing, and all the evaluations, Michael wasn't diagnosed with it either. This book is a fabulous read and a great eye opener and I highly recommend it to any parent caught in the cross hairs of the children's mental health system. Or, anyone who doesn't think ADHD/bi-polar disorder/SPD is real or is over-diagnosed. Because the author felt that way before she started writing this book. And she is very honest about that. (And hey, I kinda did too.)
So this post is a little all of the place, and I guess I'm not really sure where I am going with it. I think my point is this. (Hey look, point, I have one. Sometimes. If you read me often enough every once in a while it will happen.) It was the first time I really honestly, in my heart believed Michael was going to truly, really, be ok. Not just we can manage. Not just we can figure this out. But ok. And I know that other kids are not. And they deserve all the help they can get.
So they can have weekends like ours.
**We've Got Issues was provided to me, but I was never asked to review it. The author, who was honestly one of the loveliest people I have ever met, brought the books so we could discuss them. The link above is an Amazon affiliate link.
***Please wish my Dad a happy B-day. It was yesterday.
